Tag: No Fly List

Fascinating story via TechDirt demonstrating the complete idiocy that characterizes much of the war on terror.

A man in Australia attempted to buy some electronic parts from Element 14, which bills itself as a leading international supplier of electronics. When he showed up at a local Element 14 story to pick up the parts he had ordered online, however, he was told a “hold” had been put on the parts.

The hold, it turned out, was because Element 14 is/was comparing names of customers ordering parts to names on a U.S. terrorism watch list.

The man’s name — David Jones.

Back in 2006 a U.S. Marine was prevented from boarding a flight home because his name — David Brown — was on a watch list. The same year 60 Minutes did a story featuring 12 men named Robert Johnson who were unable to fly because that name is on some sort of watch list.

The watch lists themselves are largely security theater, but it is still a bit shocking to see how the American Terrorism Industrial Complex insists on taking this to its brain dead logic outcome.